1 tsp sweetener (I used 3 packets because it was all I had on hand) You can use whatever sweetener your prefer.

*Melt butter in the micro for 30 secs and then mix together with the almond flour and sweetener until it forms a soft meal texture!

**Tip– I used small glazed stoneware bowls and to avoid cracking the glaze, go ahead and pat the crust into the bowls and put them in the oven and then turn it on to 350 and let the bowls preheat with the oven**

*After the oven preheats, bake the crust for 15 mins!

Filling

1 sugar free jello pudding packet; cheesecake flavor

1 cup milk

1/5 cup heavy whipping cream

*Mix together all ingredients until the pudding sets; pop into the fridge to thicken while the crust bakes.

*After the crust has cooled you can fill them with the pudding mixture!

* I then heated up 2 tbsp sugar free strawberry jam to mix into the top of the pie!

Enjoy! 🙂

**Sorry about the use of the milk, for my keto friends. I knew it wouldn’t set properly using just the cream. I am though going to experiment with a cream and water mixture next time, so we shall see how that turns out!**
Per one pie: 24.5g carb, 9g sugar, 14g dietary fiber

It seems that every yummy recipe calls for bread crumbs. So I had the idea to make some out of almond flour while simultaneously using up a bag of spinach before it passed it prime. The result was quite glorious….

What you will need for the “Bread Crumbs” —

2/3 cup almond flour

2 tbsp melted butter (I used Kerry Gold)

*mix both together until crumb like texture; bake at 350 for 20 mins – stir; bake for additional 10 mins. Set aside to cool and “dry” out.

What you will need for the Spinach Balls —

6 cups fresh spinach leaves

3 eggs

1/2 cup shredded cheese (I’m sure any would be delicious; I chose to use a white Italian blend)

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp seasoning of choice (I used McCormick Montreal Steak seasoning)

1/2 tsp salt

& the bread crumb mixture

*I heated a pan with half a cup of water and wilted down all of the spinach; drained on a paper towel. **make sure to squeeze any remaining water from the spinach before adding it to the other ingredients. I made the rook mistake with half of it before I realized my mistake**

Combine all ingredients together until mixed completely; use a spoon or cookie scoop to form balls. Bake at 180 for 20 mins; then raise heat to 350 and bake an additional 15 mins. **baking at the low temp first will help dry them out without burning them**

These turned out way better than I had anticipated! I mixed up a little dipping sauce too with some sour cream, lemon juice and Montreal seasoning! Enjoy!!

Been a while since I’ve done a Q&A, and since I have gained new followers lately, I thought it would be a good idea to do one! So here we go!

Is it possible to do Keto and be vegetarian or vegan? — Yes! You will just have to adjust certain foods to be able to hit certain macros or get the proper fat intake. You would def need to be ok with sacrificing certain things in order to keep it strict though. As most veggies are high in carbs, so in my opinion that would be kind of a struggle to stay (at the least) under 30g carb to get into ketosis. You would def need to consume a really high amount of healthy fats to balance out the loss of protein from meats. I don’t know a whole lot about the actual process of vegan keto, but I do know it can be done!

Thoughts on heavy whipping cream in coffee… some say it stalls you; any other suggestions? — HWC is what I use in my coffee every single morning. Even if I make bullet proof coffee, I will still add a little HWC to it. I have never noticed it to be the cause of me stalling. I do just recommend to make sure you stick to the serving size (1-2tbsp) so you aren’t collecting extra carbs without realizing it!

Do you get days where you weight seems to stay the same? What do you eat or do to keep the scale going down? — YES! My weight is always all over the place. Sometimes it won’t budge no matter what I do, then other times I will bounce the same 5lbs around daily. I find if im eating too much meat, I will stall majorly. In the past I have done Egg Fasts that have helped the stall. But I found that the results weren’t lasting. That could just be me though, as Ive seen others have success with them. If I notice that I cannot seem to break the stall, I will cut meat out for a few days and focus on veggies and leafy greens. That (usually) seems to do the trick!

How much weight have you lost? — Overall, I have lost a total of 45lbs. BUT, I have bounced around inside those 45lbs over the last year and a half. Most being due to some poor choices around holidays and then medication weight gain.

I’ve very recently decided on going keto and got ketosis test strips but I have yet to reach a high level. Should it be taking this long? — Some people can get into ketosis pretty quickly; others it can take up to a few weeks. When I first started it took me a good 3 weeks before I saw anything on my strips. But I was still losing weight. Nowadays, I can get into ketosis in about 3/4 days. But keep in mind, even seeing a small amount on the strips is good! Ketones are ketones!

Have you tried dairy free along with keto for the PCOS symptoms? if so, did you have any different results? — I have not tried to go dairy free during keto. I honestly don’t think I could actually haha. Keto alone has helped my PCOS symptoms tremendously. Might be a good experiment for me to try though!

Keto friendly Starbucks drink? — My go to drink at Starbucks is an Americano with heavy whipping cream and sugar free vanilla or sugar free cinnamon dolce syrup. That drink can be made hot or iced or blended. Other options are unsweetened teas that you can add HWC or syrups to. Basically any plain coffee/americano/tea and just add HWC and a sugar free syrup!

Do you calculate protein vs fat vs carbs? — No, I do not. When I first started I tried to. But honestly it was just too overwhelming for me. You def will have better results if you can understand it and stick to it, I just found that that method wasn’t for me. You can google “Keto Calculator” and its the first one that comes up. You enter all your info and it will tell you your recommended macros! Hope that helps!

What are you must have keto ingredients? — Definitely cream cheese, cheddar cheese, Kerry Gold butter, coconut oil, heavy whipping cream, kale/spinach and frozen cauliflower. These are my automatic staples when I go grocery shopping! I find I use them in almost all of my cooking.

When starting do you jump right in and stay below 20 carbs or do you follow an Atkins type diet for a couple weeks? — I go straight in. No induction period. If I don’t go all or nothing, then its harder for me to say no to certain foods and I wont stay on track.

Are you on birth control? Do they help your PCOS symptoms? — I am not on birth control and am personally very against it. I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was 14 years old and then they put me on birth control when I was 15 thinking that it would regulate my periods. Well, it did not. It caused me to not have one single period for over a year. They finally took me off of it and then I had to go on medication to MAKE me have a period. Ever since then my periods were worse than they were before the BC and just continued to get worse and more screwed up. I strongly believe that BC added to my complications of PCOS. I will NEVER again put it in my body under any circumstances. Keto is the only thing that has ever effected my PCOS in a positive way. I have normal monthly periods now and I dont experience thinning/hair loss anymore.

How often do you splurge on SF sweets? (Starbucks, bars, etc) and does it effect your weight loss? — I treat myself to Starbucks once a week. As far as other sugar free treats, like bars or candy, that is a rare occasion but I do keep them on hand for cravings sake or if I know that im going to be out for a while and will need a snack. Def not something I would want to eat every single day. Too much keto “junk food” def effects my weight loss and makes me bloat.

I have a close friend with PCOS and I want to suggest the keto diet to her but im not that familiar with PCOS. Should I recommend it to her or mind my own business?– I would def suggest it to her! Especially since she is a close friend and will know you are coming from a caring place and not just some random person trying to tell you to do something that might take offense. You can tell her that you follow some people online that deal with PCOS and have found a way to combat the symptoms. I would start with that and see if she is interested! If she is, then direct her to where she can find out more info, or if she isn’t interested then I would nicely just explain that you care about her and are trying to be helpful and think this is something that might benefit her. If she still refuses the help then you can just tell her she is a big dum dum lol…. JK DONT DO THAT. But rather just print out some pamphlets and start leaving them around her house; you know, the adult thing to do =P

Well, it’s more like a .. crepe pancake? I just don’t know what else to call it.. 😏

Ok! Put some Kerry Gold salted butter in a pan with some chopped red onions on medium heat and let them cook until they start to brown.

Tear up a few leaves of spinach and spread them evenly over the onions.

Beat 2-3 eggs and add them over top of the onions and spinach. Let that cook around 5 mins or until brown … or when the egg on top is just barely cooked. That’s when it’s time to flip! Then let that cook for like about another minute. Vwala!!

I’ve noticed that I’ve gained some new followers to my blog lately. So, hi 🙂 Welcome to my emotional garbage can… and recipe site. If you haven’t gone back and read any previous blogs, I’ll sum that up for you. I write about things I go through with being bipolar; then I’ll write about random things sometimes. Just whatever needs letting out.

I go through spurts when I don’t hardly write at all. Then others when I write every other day.

I post my favorite recipes here that I deem worthy of being posted. I create a lot of other small things here and there, but not all are spectacular enough to be shared. You know what I mean? .. so yeah. Good recipes only.

I’ll be the first one to tell you how much I hate cauliflower. Like.. HATE it. It’s probably the only vegetable that I don’t like. But! Put cauliflower into mashed form? Love it. So, I was a little skeptical about making a recipe for soup using cauliflower, but in the end I def surprised myself!

What you will need:

1 head fresh cauliflower

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream

2lb carton of chicken broth (may substitute veggie stock if making it vegetarian. But then you probably wouldn’t use the hwc would you. Well whatever you just do what you want, sweetheart.)

2 cups chopped mushrooms

1/2 cup chopped red onions

4oz cream cheese

1 tsp garlic powder

Salt/pepper to taste

Olive oil and paprika

(Cheese if you are feelin fancy)

Start by roasting your cauliflower on 425 for 30 mins. I cut the cauli away from the stalk and liberally covered them in olive oil and then sprinkled them lightly with paprika. Trust me on the paprika; it was amazing.

After they’re done roasting add them to your blender along with the 2/3 cup HWC and 2/3 cup chicken broth (reserve the rest for the soup). After all that is combined go ahead and add your garlic powder and cream cheese to the blender as well so the CC can melt in with no lumps. Blend until well combined. Let that mixture sit and thicken as you sautéed your mushrooms and onions in a large pot. Once those are cooked down add the rest of the chicken broth to your pot and add the cauliflower mixture.

At this point you could add in any additional cheese to the soup to melt and add flavor. I opted not to and just added a little shredded parm cheese to the finished soup.

Let the soup simmer on low for 10-15 mins! Serve and enjoy!!!!

I LOVED this soup. Truly, loved it. It reminded me of a creamy potato soup. It was nice and thick and filling! Just what I’ve been wanting this winter. 10/10 would recommend 🙂